The present application relates to an invention described in application Ser. No. 504,950, now abandoned, in the electromechanical game and amusement device art area. The invention finds particular application in conjunction with coin-operated, electromechanical hockey games and will be described with particular reference thereto. It is to be appreciated, however, that the present invention is also applicable to hockey, soccer, rugby, football, lacrosse, and other action games and amusement apparatus.
Heretofore, there have been numerous hockey games. Commonly, the hockey games included a generally planar playing surface upon which a plurality of figures representing hockey players were rotatably mounted. Half of the figures were connected by mechanical linkages with control handles at one end of the playing surface and the other half were connected with control handles at the other end. In this manner, each player was able to manipulate half of the figures. Goals were defined at each end of the playing surface. In some instances, the goal included an aperture through the playing surface into which the playing piece fell into a return. Electronic goal sensors sensed the passage of the playing piece through the goal and incremented a corresponding score display. Some prior art hockey games further included a timer for timing the period and providing a display of the time left in each period. Other prior art hockey games provided a cyclic crowd noise which unrelated to the actions on the playing surface and, consequently, sounded artificial and "canned".
These prior art hockey games like other mechanical and electromechanical games and amusements lacked an easily and quickly read instant replay capability. Frequently, action and scoring occurred so fast that the players had difficulty determining just how the scoring had transpired. Further, many of the prior art games have been relatively unrealistic since they provided little audio stimulation. If any crowd noise was provided, it was "mechanical" and did not correspond to the game action.
The present invention contemplates a new and improved mechanical action game with audio responses variably keyed to the action and an instant schematically represented replay display showing each scoring play.